04 | 🕓 | audio | spam

[mirrortouch]

( AUDIO )

Alana Bloom's cabin is empty.

[ Frayed at the edges, his voice. Abigail was first. Now it's just him. Him and Hannibal. Was that the way it was always meant to be. ]

Since these sort of announcements ought to be made.

[ This is getting too awkward city for him. He just hangs up. ]


( SPAM )

[ He woke up to Winston sitting patiently on the cement floor of his sad little room with its lopsided cot and his heart had immediately sank down into his stomach. That drop of a feeling when something's occurred to you quickly and innately. It's not that Winston hasn't gotten out before, found his way to Will's room; it's just that it's invariably accompanied by Alana.

Alana's not here. So Alana's not here. Is she?

There's a while where he just sits in her open cabin, hands stroking idly at Winston's ears and across his haunches. He loses track of time, maybe an hour, maybe four. He'd done the same with Abigail's. He was surprised nobody'd come across him then, and he doesn't expect to now. ]

Comments

( SPAM )

[mirrortouch]

[ It's both the last and first person he needs to see right about now. Hannibal's attempts at commiseration will be either unbearable because of what he knows, how dare you try to match me; and yet, that niggling sensation at the back of his head, a comrade in arms.

He looks up with Winston's head still in his hands, his thumbs stop stroking at his ears, and he just gives a scattered look across the dreary interior of his cabin. ]

I can't promise I'll be much company.

[ It's as good an invitation as any. ]

( SPAM )

[youwill]

[While Alana was in a coma and Hannibal struggled with the death toll, he walked Winston twice a day for a week. He remembers that, confused why he doesn't remember it with more kindness. There is a detachment in all his memories that just don't make sense to him now.

He hears the invitation and steps inside with a small nod. In lieu of sitting beside Will on the bed, he leans against the wall, clasping his hands in front of him to keep them still.]

I cannot promise anything more.

[There is a hollowness inside, and he breathes in slowly before letting his breath out in a rush.]

Sometimes, people will come back. [It's a tentative, empty hope, a spark that may die unless fanned.]